In the harvesting of crops, agricultural equipment, sometimes denoted herein by the abbreviation AE, and the individual agricultural machines of such agricultural equipment have long been operated under control of an operator thereof, sometimes based upon various data relating, among other things, to the individual machine being operated as well as to crop type, weather conditions, topographical conditions, and the position of the individual machine in the field from which the crop is being harvested. In more recent years, sensors and processing devices and systems of various types have been employed to assist in the control and operation of the individual agricultural machines, and positioning systems of various designs have been developed to permit an accurate indication of the position of the individual machine within a field to be readily determined.
Many combine harvesters, often hereinafter referred to more simply as harvesters, now include or employ associated operating systems to control to some extent the harvesting operations. Such operating systems typically include a processing portion that is operatively connected to receive data input by a user at or through various operator controls or input devices as well as various data inputs from various sensor or monitoring devices or systems. The processing portion is responsive to the data that it receives to develop and establish various performance parameters for the operation of the harvester in the harvesting of a crop and to control the operation of the harvester as it moves through the field and its components operate to harvest the crop. In general, each combine harvester operates to harvest the crop in accordance with the performance parameters established for such combine harvester, which performance parameters typically vary from harvester to harvester often due, at least in part, to different settings called for or adjustments made by individual operators as well as differing sensor detections.
Consequently, when a plurality of combine harvesters are employed to harvest a crop in a field, each of such combine harvesters may be operating with different performance parameters, and some of the harvesters may be operating less efficiently than others of the harvesters, such as because the operator of a given harvester is appreciably less experienced with the operation of that particular harvester construction or less attuned to various nuances of the equipment or less knowledgeable of the applicable field conditions. In such situations, it is desirable that adjustments be able to be made to the performance parameters of the less efficiently operating machine in order to secure more optimized operation of such machine.
In part, to address such concerns, communications systems and devices of various constructions have been installed on or in the individual agricultural machines to allow communications therebetween by the operators thereof and even the communication or exchange of various data, typically by RF wireless communications. Voice communications have allowed the operators of individual agricultural machines, including different types of agricultural machines, to orally communicate information, including machine location and operating information, to the operators of other agricultural machines, thereby allowing the operators to make adjustments in the operations of the individual machines as conditions might warrant, principally, when the communications are between different types of agricultural machines, such as between a combine harvester and a crop transport vehicle, in the navigation of a second agricultural machine to join or intercept a first agricultural machine, such as for the transfer of a harvested crop from the first to the second agricultural machine.
In such regard, in some instances and with some communications systems machine operators of a combine harvester have been able to provide electronic data to other operators or to control systems associated with other agricultural machines, such as crop transport vehicles, to permit coordination of crop transfer to the crop transport vehicles and, in some cases, to remotely exercise some control over crop transport vehicles, such as steerage of the crop transport vehicles to meet the combine harvester at the combine harvester's position in a field, and the scheduling of the time and location for the combine harvester and a crop transport vehicle to meet.
In other instances and with other systems, machine operators of a crop transport vehicle have been able to receive electronic data from combine harvesters to permit control systems associated with the crop transport vehicle to coordinate the scheduling of positionings of the crop transport vehicle relative to one or more crop harvesters and the automated steerage of the crop transport vehicle to meet the combine harvesters at the combine harvesters' positions in a field so that coordinated transfers of the harvested crop from the combine harvesters to the crop transport vehicle can be effected.
For the most part, however, the electronic data so provided or received has related to the location and relative positionings of the combine harvesters and transport vehicles, with, in some instances, an operator of the combine harvester or the crop transport vehicle having the further ability to act as a master and to remotely control to some extent the navigation and/or steerage of others of the agricultural vehicles as slave vehicles in order to effect interceptions therebetween for the transfer of harvested crop from the combine harvesters to the transport vehicles. In other instances, the electronic data may be communicated to a control location distinct from both the combine harvesters and the transport vehicles, and remote operation of the combine harvesters and crop transport vehicles may be effected from such distinct location. In some situations, control systems of slave vehicles have been so designed that, instead of, or in addition to, facilitating the steerage of navigation of the vehicles to effect an intercept therebetween, the slave vehicle is controlled to follow, or to remain at a relatively fixed distance from, the master vehicle, based upon a continuing communication of positioning and location information between or regarding the master and slave vehicles.
Such communications and data exchanges between combine harvesters and crop transport vehicles have not, however, addressed the concerns relative to the use of varying performance parameters by generally like combine harvesters, and the resulting differences in securing optimal harvesting results. Users have continued to seek systems and methods that would allow them to readily establish, especially without the need for extended voice communications by machine operators, and resultant operator actions to manually reset various controls or parameters of the agricultural machines they are operating, within a plurality of generally like agricultural machines designed to perform generally similar agricultural operations within a given area, generally like performance parameters for the plurality of agricultural machines, especially based upon the performance parameters of a particular agricultural machine that is considered or deemed to be the expert or exemplar machine.